I was listening to this podcast...it's called Sound Opinions from Chicago Public Radio and it airs on NPR. It's sort of like "At The Movies" but with the rock music critics from the Sun-Times and the Tribune, and is a really great podcast if you are interested in that sort of thing. This particular episode highlights the reunion tour of The Feelies which is, honestly, one of those bands that as a music geek I feel like I am really supposed to like but just have never been able to enjoy. But wait, I digress...

The reason I am bringing it up on this forum is an interview with Tom "Grover" Biery, VP of Marketing for Warner Brothers Records. He is also in charge of their vinyl album initiatives. Get this...vinyl album sales are up 77% over last year, while CD sales are down 16%. No doubt it still makes up only a small portion of their total revenue...but 77%? Holy cow! It got me thinking...

I love mp3s. But I also miss having that big, square piece of artwork. I miss the inside album sleeve with the liner notes and the lyrics printed on it. Some bands now release "digital booklets" that feature the same stuff...but sitting and listening to one of my favorite bands while flipping through their latest PDF? Ugh. Digital vs. paper. There are pros and cons to both, but honestly, in my world they co-exist. So what does this have to do with B2B marketing? Well...when is the last time you went old school and did a direct mail campaign?

Just thinking out loud here, but it seems to me that one of the biggest challenges for marketing campaigns in the electronic age, especially with email campaigns, is getting them to render the way that you want them to look. I can look at one email on my Outlook 2007 at work, via webmail through my browser, or on my BlackBerry. I can even look at it through a WiFi connection on my iPod. It looks different in every single medium. And here's the kicker...it may not even look the way the sender intended it to!

Think about how many emails you receive that get thrown out without even allowing your email client to render the images properly, and then think about your daily postal mail. Your creative may be incredible, a work of art! But if I am not seeing the images, then what does it matter? I may not read everything I get in the mail, but I at least look at it as a whole and decide whether it is worth reading.

A nice postcard or direct mail piece will look exactly the way you want it to look, with properly rendered images and the fonts you selected. And one of the biggest drawbacks to direct mail, that inability to track ROI as effectively as with digital marketing, is now much easier to overcome through best practices like customized landing pages.

Another good thing? Direct mail has a pretty low bounce rate...if your target is no longer at the company then your piece stands a pretty good shot of landing on the desk of the replacement. Throw in that "retro" appeal of getting a really clever piece of marketing in the mail and you could have a winner of a campaign. Maybe it's time to consider giving direct mail another shot. Now excuse me, I think I might stroll over to Amoeba and check out the latest vinyl.

Almost two weeks late on this, but in case you missed it Google can now index Flash files on your website...or at least any textual elements in the Flash that your site visitors are able to see and interact with. Some limitations include Flash that is launched by javascript as well as external content that is loaded by your Flash file. Check it out at the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog.

...in John Moore's "Would You Miss..." series over at Brand Autopsy.

Would you miss Dunder Mifflin?

Read the comments. That's what she said.

Two great sources for more details on the CAN-SPAM changes that went into effect on July 7th:

Total Compliance -- What Do the Changes in CAN-SPAM Mean for You? (by John Engler,VP and GM of UnsubCentral and posted at eMarketing and Commerce).

Duct Tape Marketing podcast interview with Janine Popick, CEO from Vertical Response about the changes...listen to it or download it here.

And Speaking of Vertical Response, the webinar I did with them a few weeks back is now up and available for viewing in their community education section, "How to Do Everything." Advanced Tracking and Reporting, From Your Email Campaigns to Dollars in the Bank. Jeremy Engler from VR spoke about some advanced reporting and tracking capabilities within Vertical Response, while I focused on a tour of Google Analytics. check that out here.

One of the sales guys here forwarded this great article to me about deliverability and avoiding spam filters with your opt-in email campaigns. Check it out.

20 Ways Opt-in E-Mailers Can Outsmart Spam Filters by Dr. Ralph F. Wilson.

The Long Tail.

This is one of those phrases I hear more and more. And at the risk of betraying my own ignorance, it is one of those phrases where I think I know what it means...at least in relation to search marketing.

Approximately 90% of the traffic on the search engines is tied up into a small number, maybe 10% of the keywords. The other 10% of the traffic, which is still A LOT of traffic, is tied up in more specific, niche, specialized phrases and words. Those words make up the "long tail." For example, "television" is not in the long tail. "32 inch LCD HDTV with input for my computer" is. Click here for a series of graphical representations. Ignore the picture of the monkey with the long tail, though.

Feel free to put your own definitions up in the comments section, as long as you make them as simple as possible. Also, are there any other marketing phrases you can think of that could use a good "plain english" definition? Let's hear them.

The B2B Search gurus at Enquiro have written a much more eloquent and detailed list of reasons to use Google's webmaster tools than I ever could. Check it out here.

It has been generating buzz in any number of places, so he must know what he is talking about...

BzzAgent John Balter has written an book called The Word of Mouth Manual, Volume II and it is available for free as an eBook from a few selected blogs. Wow, even that is a good idea..."you are one of only a dozen sources for this book online, should you want to brag/write about that fact..."

I've read the first ten pages and look forward to plowing through it. Download it free (!) from any of the blogs listed here, or look it up on Amazon if you want to pay $45 for the hard copy.

Sharing a post from one of my favorite marketing blogs, Brand Autopsy. Interesting because he refers to a column in Advertising Age wherein the authors recommend not advertising. Check it out here.

The bottom line is, good customer service and a product that works are more deserving of the $$ than a new campaign. What sort of shape are you in, support and service-wise? I'm not saying you should allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good...but are you even good?

Keep reading through the comments, some lively debate. Good stuff.

If you liked my posts on How to Get Your Ideas Across (business communication circa 1970) you might like this....

Back in 1965, stores would allow people to take a record album home with them with a very unique advertisement for one of their products. In exchange for bringing the record back, they would get a discount on said product. BoingBoing saw this post and pointed to it, but here is the direct link to The Most Important Event of the Year.

I was thinking about the previous post, specifically about the Salesforce.com IdeaExchange community...

In the client/server world new releases are a big deal and can be very compelling...but do you know of anyone who is rabid with anticipation over the next release of Microsoft Office? Of course not. When you need to lay out that kind of money on an upgrade, you want to take a slower approach which analyzes the performance of the new software (is it buggy?) and you need to justify the cost of these new features to management (are 100 new fonts really worth the extra money?).

SFDC now has a dedicated community of users putting hours of effort into their suggestions, monitoring their performance on the exchange, voting, commenting, and competing with colleagues over whose idea is better. Users are jumping into new releases and updates with a gusto you don't normally see outside of video game addicts or Apple fanboys. 

Isn't it cool that people can get this excited about their job and the tools they use in it? And what a great marketing touchstone to get people talking.

Well, if you do, Salesforce.com would like to hear about it.

The SFDC Idea Exchange, has been up and running for a long time now. It's a place customers can share their ideas for feature requests with the community to solicit feedback and votes in order to try and get them higher up on the developmental "to-do" list. It's really interesting to have this kind of visibility into their feature request world, and the amount of detail and work some of their customers put into the feature requests that they post is pretty impressive.

SFDC has created a Dreamforce portion in the Idea Exchange, in order to solicit input from the community on content at this November's event. If you are a Salesforce.com customer you can vote on the presentations you would like to see, or if you have an idea for a presentation you want to deliver (that is not simply an advertisement for your product or services) you can out it up there and see if anyone votes for it.

One idea I particularly like was Salesforce Marketing for Small Businesses, although I think it is something that deserves an entire track as opposed to a single session. I actually wrote a bit about just that after the last Dreamforce, part of my Five Things to Make Dreamforce Better post. Here's an excerpt:

"Create a new track: Guerilla Salesforce.com -- Bigger does not necessarily mean more interesting. At the keynotes, at the awards, and in the breakout sessions the customer references and case studies are overwhelmingly dominated by big customers. I understand -- big customers are cool. But last time I checked, the vast majority of customers (heck, the vast majority of partners) all have less than 100 employees. I was in one marketing track where the speaker asked how many attendees worked in marketing departments with less than five people in them. Most of the room raised their hands. Here's what you do. Create a track dedicated to best practices and creative ways to use Salesforce.com without a lot of extra development, and without a single App off the AppExchange that you can't download for free....and create an Appy Award that a customer with less than 100 seats has a shot at winning. "Most Creative Use of Salesforce.com Without Spending a Penny."

I'm doing a webinar recap of the presentation I gave at the Vertical Response Spring Marketing Event a few weeks back. Jeremy's portion is perfect for Vertical Response customers interested in getting their reporting capabilities up to the next level, while I focus more on general "how-to" stuff with regard website analytics using the free Google Analytics tool.

It's free, but registration is required. Here's the link...

Wednesday, June 11, 2008 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM PDT

You've created and sent a great looking email - now the fun begins.  Start using advanced tracking with the Vertical Response "Click to Sale" feature and the Vertical Response Google Analytics integration.  Join Jeremy Engler and Jason Stewart of Demandbase to learn:

• How to leverage Click to Sale tracking and Google Analytics to gain real business insight
• How to use VerticalResponse's Google Analytics integration and Click to Conversion tracking.
• What types of reports you can create - and how to analyze them
• Why now is the time to take your reporting to the next level

About the Speakers:
Jason Stewart leads the demand generation programs for Demandbase, Inc. and is also the lead contributor for Demandblog, dedicated to best practices in B2B demand generation.  Mr. Stewart is a recognized thought leader in the B2B lead generation and lead management space, and is the founding leader of the Salesforce.com San Francisco user group.

Jeremy Engler is a Product Manager at Vertical Response who brings 9 years of technology experience to the VerticalResponse team.  He was previously the Operations Manager for Salesforce.com's AppExchange, and no one has a better understanding of the advanced reporting tools provided by VR.

Register HERE.

Coming out of the comments related to this post, Search Optimization for Press Releases, is a link to a great tool for grading your press release before you post it online.

Unfortunately, Hubspot's PressReleaseGrader can't tell you how enticing the hook is on your story, or if the press will flock to you as the next big thing. That's up to you. What it can do is pretty impressive, however, checking it for links, phone numbers, format, reading level, and even showing you which words are mentioned most in the release to make sure you are emphasizing the correct keywords. A great tool to make sure the nuts and bolts are there, and are placed correctly.

It's up to you to create the story, though...and that's always the hardest part.

Check it out here.

I did an interview with Selling Power for their Salesforce.com newsletter, talking a little bit about Demandbase, Vertical Response, and general ease of use and the depth and breadth of partner applications available for Salesforce.com users. Registration is required, but it's free. Here is the desciption from the newsletter:

CUSTOMER INTERVIEW: How Demandbase Uses AppExchange to Increase Lead Generation Efficiency
Customer: Jason Stewart Title: Senior Manager, Demand Generation
--
SP: What is Demandbase all about?
JS: Demandbase is an online, pay-as-you-go marketplace for business contact information. We've partnered with some leading data providers, such as Hoovers, D&B, Business Watch Network, and LexisNexis to create a place where B2B salespeople can purchase business contact information (often including email address) without a subscription and without a minimum purchase....read more.

Demandbase is launching the first issue of our newsletter tomorrow, Innovations in B2B Marketing.

This free quarterly newsletter highlights best practices and innovations for B2B marketers, culled from leading publications and bloggers in the B2B marketing space. In our debut issue, we focus on the benefits of a target marketing and tips for budgeting in the face of a slowing economy. Check out a sneak preview here, and find links to our new case study and white paper as well...

Demandbase has a press release coming out next week, and we asked our PR firm (Marketing Alchemist) to do a little research on optimizing our release for the search engines. In a shameless bit of cut and paste, I thought it might be interesting to share the email I got back summarizing their findings from a variety of sources, with links to the original materials. Here you go...

____________________________________

• How to optimize your release for the search  engines
• Research  keywords for your target audience/subject matter
• Add keywords to the press release to create keyword-rich content
• Add  keywords to your H1 header tag
• Add  keywords strategically within your press release copy
• Add  keywords in links back to your site
• Make  sure density levels are appropriate (I recommend an 8-15% overall density)
• Make  sure your optimize the first 250 words of your content
  
  
• Case study of WineZap.com July 2004 SEOed press  release:
• Major differences were made in the most critical spot - the headline
• Use of wine related search phrases in their release
• Also  incorporated a call to action and discount coupon for those who clicked through from the press release to a special landing page with newsletter sign-up
• "Sweet spot of 400 to 500 words" as the ideal press release length
• Recommends  experimentation to determine the right keyword density
• Critical terms were included only once each, but were each included in the short 400 word release.
• Important  keyword phrases were hyperlinked within the text and the release posted to PRweb.com site press release archive.
  
  
• Tips from "industry friends" of SEO professional  Lee Odden of Online Marketing Blog:
• Write a pithy (80 character or less,) descriptive headline that includes important  keywords.
• Use the language that your audience/potential customers use when searching for or discussing topics related to your product or industry
• Link your strategically important search keywords to deep relevant pages in your site, not the front page.
• View creating a press release as compiling a mini web page on the news or topic being written about.
• Add an audio link such as a podcast or product announcement into your press  release. If you have an RSS feed associated with your releases, you can direct Apple iTunes to pick up the audio automatically and include it in a freely available channel on iTunes.com.
• Consider choosing a newswire which will allow "external" multimedia content hosting. For example, YouTube for video or Flickr for photos. These sites are spidered by the major search engines as well as being searchable "social" directories within the site. YouTube is the third largest search engine.
  
  
• All Aboard! Inbound Links for SEO - SEO Press Release deliverables will generally include:
• 450-500 word press release; optimized for a core search term and 2 to 3 niche terms
• Release incorporates anchor text; based on search term associated with target web page
• You often have your choice of distribution
• Access; to view statistics about how your news release performed over a 30-day period
• RSS  feed and paid inclusion distribution
  
  
• SEO Myth: Press releases for SEO - Online press release optimization needs to focus on three things: Presentation, position, and performance:
• You have to write the most interesting, compelling copy you can. You are only be newsworthy if you show people there is a new angle to your story. Announcing your new product is not news in and of itself with compelling information on why it is different.
• Press release positioning is also critical. If you think all you have to do is submit a press release to eMediawire or PRWeb, get out of the press release business.
• Press release performance should be measured and adjusted meticulously. If you're only writing one press release, you take your best shot.

Source Articles

• General Tips: http://www.pandia.com/features/pressrelease.html
• Case study of WineZap.com SEOed press release in  July of 2004: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2004/11/22/press-releases-new-seo-back-door-to-top-rankings
• Tips from "industry friends" of SEO professional  Lee Odden of Online Marketing Blog: http://www.toprankblog.com/2007/11/press-release-seo-tips/
• All Aboard! Inbound Links for SEO: http://www.searchengineguide.com/paul-bruemmer/all-aboard-inbound-links-for-seo.php
• SEO Myth: Press releases for SEO: http://seo-theory.com/wordpress/2007/06/22/seo-myth-press-releases-for-seo/

Many of you may know about Google's tools for webmasters already, but if you don't (and you have responsibility for search engine optimization of your website) you go take the tour and then have your webmaster set it up.

Here's just a few questions you'll be able to answer about how Google sees your site...

• When is the last time Googlebot crawled my website?
• Did it find any dead links and what were they?
• Are there any changes I should make to descriptions and metadata to help improve my search rankings?
• Which natural search queries most often returned pages from my site, and which of them were clicked?
• How is my site indexed by Google, and which pages are indexed?
• Which other sites point to my site?

You can also make sure Google knows where your site map is, and is crawling it. And if you don't have a site map, go build one and then subscribe to the webmaster tools, which is completely free to use.

I read a really nice post today from Direct Connections (one of the blogs I recently mentioned) about direct marketing best practices. It's called Direct Marketing: Rules vs. Laws.

The one sentence to remember is this one..."But there's also a law that comes into play, a law any high school physics student knows: the law of inertia. Simply put, audiences want to take the path of least resistance." Bingo! The less you require of your prospects, the more likely they are to do what you want.

You need to do everything you can to microtarget your campaigns and qualify your prospects before you market to them. And then, if your offer is good enough to get them to one of your landing pages, make it so easy for them to convert that it becomes a no-brainer.

At the very least reduce the number of fields on your form to the bare minimum, and eliminate anything you can't find out with a quick search on your own. If possible, provide pre-populated forms so that data entry requirements are minimal. Otherwise, consider creating drop-downs with choices in them that can conform to your data requirements and help with any sort of lead scoring you have in place. Your conversion rates will improve, guaranteed.

In response to my question about what you were reading, I got these blogs and publications back (in no particular order)...

B2Blog - Business-to-business (b2b) and industrial marketing blog.

Lonely Marketer - a discussion for the small business marketing manager. I like this one too, and wish they posted more...

Internet Marketing Report - news and insights on how executives are using the internet to drive business objectives.

Micro Persuasion - explores the impact of digital trends on business, culture, media and marketing.

Small Business SEM - because not everyone can throw thousands of dollars at the ‘How do we market ourselves online?' question...

Marketing Experiments - Real-time data, insights, answers, and advice from the analysts at MarketingExperiments.com.

Ernan Roman - Relationship Marketing Insights Newsletter.

Rimm Kaufman - search, marketing and musings.

I'll be adding all these to my Google Reader to see what the fuss is about. Some other marketing blogs that are already there...

Seth Godin - always entertaining and insightful, never forgets that customer service can be the key to a successful business.

Vertical Response - Janine knows email marketing.

Brand Autopsy - I've been enjoying his ""Would you miss...?" series a lot, asking if you would miss companies like Pizza Hut or UPS if they just disappeared.

Direct Connections - Howard has a tremendous amount of Direct Marketing experience and shares some great insights.

Duct Tape Marketing - This is an award winning blog I only just started reading, so far so good.

Search Engine Round Table - SEM can change so quickly it's good to read these guys to keep up.

Please, continue to share your picks in the comments section...

I belong to a group on Facebook called "What I Saw at the Direct Marketing Revolution" which sends me periodic emails and updates with thoughts and discussion about what is working (and not working) as the marketing landscape changes. Yesterday a bulletin went out to the group that was really interesting, and I hope they don't mind if I publish it here:

-------------------
Subject: Recessionary Direct Marketing

Okay - we may not be in an actual recession, but the economy is clearly slowin' down and lots of direct marketers are hurtin'.

Here's some advice from a guy who founded a direct marketing shop during the 1989 recession and survived the post 9-11 "depression" (yep, that would be me):

- Don't panic. This too will pass.
- Use what you know about accountable advertising to justify the continuation of profitable direct marketing.
- If something must be cut, let it be the stuff that isn't measured and doesn't produce a damn thing.
- If you allow your new business pipeline to dry up, it may take a long time to recover even after the economy improves. But if you play your cards right and run smart direct marketing, you'll be among the first to participate in the recovery.

-------------------

This email hit home for me on a number of levels. As many of you know, one of the first departments to get cut when a company is struggling is marketing. This was because it is so hard to quantify the value of marketing and the return on your marketing investments. Without being able to prove your worth, you become vulnerable.

No more.

Get a proper CRM tool in place, with good reporting. Use it in combination with a marketing campaign strategy involving mediums that lend themselves to proper monitoring like pay-per-click, webinars, email, and a solid series of landing pages with web forms that send information to your CRM about the source of every new lead. Make sure your CRM system is the same one sales uses to track their pipeline, and make it a requirement that all selling opportunities are credited to the marketing campaign or lead source that brought them the lead. Reward sales for doing it properly, and make sure they understand that they will make more money in the long run if they are diligent and honest about where the leads come from. Then sit back and watch with a stronger sense of security as you are able to selectively spend money only on the marketing campaigns that are actually driving revenue, and not just creating leads.

And best of all, you'll be able to prove it.

I am having trouble finding good content lately. It seems like a lot of the usual go-to publications in the business-to-business marketing space have lost  their edge. Sure, Marketing Sherpa  always has very informative content, and up-and-comer Demand Gen Report has been publishing some really strong pieces as well ... but I find myself deleting more B2B e-newsletters than ever lately because I feel like I am being consistently let down by the content of many of the providers I always went to in the past. I mean, how many more pieces do I need to see about the rift between sales and marketing?

I would love to know what you think, but more importantly I would love to know what you are reading. Blogs or magazines or online publications focusing on B2B marketing...please share in the comments section.